Yura Lee wins solitary first prize at ARD Music Competition

The ARD Music Competition in Munich, Germany, finished yesterday with only one first prize being awarded across the four categories of violin, viola, piano trio and bassoon.

The lone first prize of €10,000 went to South Korean Yura Lee in the viola division. Lee, a 28-year-old violinist and violist, studied at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and the New England Conservatory in Boston. Her teachers included Namyun Kim, Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, Miriam Fried, Paul Biss, Thomas Riebl, Ana Chumachenko and Nobuko Imai.

Second prize and the audience prize went to Kyoungmin Park, 23, also from South Korea. Katarzyna Budnik-Ga??zka, 28, from Poland, came third.

In the violin division, second prize was shared by South Korean Bomsori Kim, 24, and Christel Lee, 22, from the US. Lee also won the audience prize. In the piano trio division, the joint second-prize winners were the Karénine Trio, from France, and the Van Baerle Trio, from the Netherlands. The Van Baerle Trio also won the audience prize. No third prize was awarded in either category.

Subscribe to The Strad or download our digital edition as part of a 30-day free trial.